- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.
military helicopter pilots in Iraq have begun changing flight patterns
and using other evasive tactics to reduce the chances of being shot down
by missiles and other weapons fired by guerrillas, defense officials said
on Friday.
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- "You can be certain that pilots are now taking different
approaches to their tactics, techniques and procedures," one of the
officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.
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- The official said that could include varying routes and
schedules and sometimes flying very low and fast to throw off the aim of
would-be attackers.
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- They spoke in response to questions after a U.S. Black
Hawk military helicopter crashed in Iraq on Friday, killing all six on
board. Soldiers at a U.S. Army base near the crash site said it was probably
downed by a rocket-propelled grenade.
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- It was the third U.S. helicopter shot down in two weeks
for an overall loss of 22 lives.
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- Defense officials said the military -- prompted by the
downing of a U.S. CH-47 Chinook helicopter west of Baghdad by a missile
with the loss of 16 troops over the weekend -- was also looking into how
many helicopters in Iraq were equipped with defensive packages such as
flares and metal chaff.
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- "They are checking on those (protective) parts and
the maintenance status of each aircraft," said one official.
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- The Chinook was equipped with a package of counter-measures,
including an AL-156 metal chaff dispenser and an M-130 device that distributes
flares to counter heat-seeking missiles. But it was not known if the device
was on at the time the chopper was downed by what might have been a Russian-made
SA-7 shoulder-fired missile.
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- The new tactics mark the latest round in a deadly tit-for-tat
game of attack and defend by guerrillas and the military in an escalating
and increasingly-sophisticated number of attacks on the U.S.-led military
coalition in Iraq.
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- The defense officials refused to be specific about new
tactics used by U.S. pilots, but said that varying flight times and flying
at night instead of during the day over certain areas could be among maneuvers.
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- U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, charged
on Wednesday that some Illinois and Iowa National Guard aircraft in Iraq
-- the Chinook's pilot was from Durbin's state -- lacked equipment to fend
off surface-to-air missile attacks.
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- Durbin said "reliable military sources" told
him they had been battling to get anti-missile equipment and that helicopter
crews had to scavenge items from other helicopters.
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- A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Capt. David Romley, told
Reuters that "aircraft survivability equipment" was not routinely
installed on helicopters and that it was the responsibility of military
units commanders to install it.
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- Estimates suggest that Iraq had 5,000 to 7,000 portable
missiles, predominantly SA-7s that are visually aimed and then home in
on heat from an aircraft's exhaust.
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- It is difficult to protect helicopters and other slow-flying
aircraft from ground attack, but experts noted that rocket propelled grenades
-- which are fired from a rifle -- as well as missiles are far from perfect.
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- "An RPG is an unguided weapon and doesn't have much
range at all. It is not designed to be used against a moving target such
as an aircraft," one Army officer told Reuters at the Pentagon. "But
a lucky shot is always possible."
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- Shoulder-fired and other guided anti-aircraft missiles
have a much longer range than RPGs, but also need a longer flight time
to track targets using infrared heat-seeking warheads or radar.
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